One of Seattle’s biggest names in music, restaurants and the party scene has been accused of rape and sexual assault by five women.

Dave Meinert is kind of a big deal in Seattle. He’s like the Mark Maron of the Emerald City, but not funny. I lived in Seattle for 10 years until 2009, so I can attest that no one in Seattle actually refers to it as the Emerald City. As for these allegations, I personally know people involved in this Meinert story. I believe the victims.

The big question now, for Seattle, and people who do business with him, is whether he pays a price for this. Whether that’s criminally or at least societally and economically.

His entertainment company, Onto Entertainment, manages The Lumineers. His restaurant company, with his business partners Jason LaJeunesse and Joey Burgess, includes Grim’s, the Comet, Big Mario’s pizza and Lost Lake. Meinert also owns the 5 Point Cafe.

Update 2: All of the acts signed onto his Onto Entertainment company have severed ties with Meinert.

Update: The Stranger has a story about Meinert’s claim that one of the instances of rape was proven false by polygraph tests he took. Not so fast, the polygraph questions never asked if the sex was consensual, just that it happened.